Using Local Disk Space

Disk Usage

Every user has a home directory, for the storage of personal
data and files. Users should store text files, email spools, papers,
pictures, web pages, and other such data here. As a courtesy to other
users, please keep your disk usage below five gigabytes (5000 megabytes);
while we do not currently enforce quotas on this space, you will get
periodic requests to trim your files down to this limit. Do not
store large data sets in /Home .

Incremental backups of these files are made nightly.

/Projects

Projects space is for mass storage of research or administrative
projects. Space is assigned to a specific user, on request and as needed,
and should always be controlled by a current group member. This is where
all large datasets should be stored. Note that once these files are no
longer in use, they should be archived and removed to save on disk space.
As a courtesy to other users, please keep your disk usage below fifty
gigabytes (51200 megabytes); while we do not currently enforce quotas on
this space, you will get periodic requests to trim your files down to this
limit.

All Projects spaces must be maintained by a current Resource
member.

As disk space is limited resource, Projects spaces should only
hold data which is currently being used. Older files should be
archived to CD/DVD and loaded when needed.

Please inform the sysadmin team when you anticipate a substantial
increase in disk usage, to allow for necessary planning to handle
the increased disk and backup load.

Incremental backups of these files are made nightly.

/Scr

There are three categories of /Scr space:

Short-term - files in these /Scr spaces are
automatically deleted after not being modified for a certain length of
time, as indicated by the name of the space (ie, in /Scr/7day-1 files are
deleted after seven days). This space is for short-term storage of files,
such as to analyze a data file generated and stored at NCSA or PSC.
In order to better manage this space, the sysadmin team
reserves the right to monitor this space for trends regarding file
modification times and usage.

Long-term - files in these directories are saved
until the space is needed. This is useful for storing files that can be
recovered from CD/DVD if necessary, or for output files for local compute
runs. Files may be deleted from these spaces without notice if the space
is needed for other projects.

Temporary - these /Scr spaces are allocated
through the queueing system for one-week periods.
This ensures that disk space is normally available to download
archived data for analysis.
To allocate a temporary scratch partition, run the command
echo | qsub -l arch=scratch.
You will receive an email with instructions when your job starts running
and daily until you delete the allocated directory.
Please limit yourself to one temporary scratch space at a time
and delete your directory promptly when you are done using it.

Note that files in /Scr are not backed up.
Whether you accidently delete your files or the disk fails, if there is a
problem there is no way to get the files back. Never put anything into
/Scr that you can't afford to lose.

Files outside of these areas are subject to removal by the system
administrators without notice. Note that this applies to group
workstations and laptops.

Backups

Backups of /home and /Projects spaces are performed nightly. Details
are here.